


21

by Enchantable



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alien Biology, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, alien detox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 05:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: “Where’s Max?” He asks.“Max is sick,” someone familiar tells him, “he’s getting better, just like you.”“Not like Alex,” he mumbles. Fingers push through his curls, “where’s Alex?”





	21

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt: Can you write something about Alex dying with them being broken apart because of Maria and not knowing how Michael feels about him but then Michael wakes up feeling like a wreck because it was only a nightmare, he didn’t die and so he makes a decision.

The first time he kills Alex, it’s an accident.

He uses his powers and he intends to kill Alex’s dad, but he kills Alex instead. Crushes his chest, breaks his neck—he leaves him laying there twisted and still. Alex stares at him blankly but he always stares. And Michael always knows that he did it. He bolts up the first time and practically headbutts Liz. She rolls back with grace and flexibility he hopes his brother appreciates as he gasps for air.

“I killed Alex,” he tells her, “he’s dead.”

“No, no, no,” she says, coming back over to the bed with far more kindness than he deserves, “Michael you’re going through withdrawal. Alex is fine.”

“You don’t know that!” He says.

“Hang on,” she says and dials his number, pressing a finger to her lips so show he should be silent. It rings several times and goes to voicemail because Alex is dead. He killed him. She dials again. This time it connects, “Alex?” She says.

“What?” Alex’s disgruntled voice comes from the other end, thick with sleep.

“I was just calling to see if you wanted to get coffee,” she says, floundering for an excuse.

“It’s three am, can’t you drunk dial anyone else?” He asks.

Liz sours but Alex can’t see.

Michael remembers the last time he shared a bed with Alex. After the sex. How his hair stuck up in every direction and he made soft sounds even in his sleep. How he wasn’t a still sleeper but when Michael banded his arms around him to keep him from falling off the narrow bed, Alex curled against his chest like a cat and it was the most adorable thing Michael ever witnessed. He tries to cling to that as Liz grabs the bin and shoves it under him and gets out of the room so he can be violently ill again.

Fuck withdrawal.

The next time, Alex dies alone in the desert. Instead of coming back in pieces he doesn’t come back at all. He’s on some special mission so it’s not even on any of the usual channels. There’s no parade, he just gets a phone call weeks after the fact from an attorney who presses a guitar and a handcuff shaped necklace into his hands while Jesse Manes glares at him like he’s the reason Alex is dead. Maybe he is, maybe he always is.

“Everyone’s there for a reason,” he says as Isobel presses a cold towel to his forehead, “right? Maybe that’s why I was there.”

“You know that isn’t true,” Isobel says. She shifts so Michael’s head is in her lap and carefully combs her fingers through his hair, just enough so he can feel it, not enough for her nails to get tangled, “you did nothing wrong.”

“Why does it fucking hurt then?” He says.

“Because you did something stupid,” she says, tugging on his earlobe just to remind him he’s not dying or getting away with it.

“I’m a genius,” he reminds her, “remember?”

“Okay genius,” she says, easing him up and reaching over to grab a glass of brightly colored liquid with a straw in it “take some baby sips and see if you can keep this down.”

Spoiler alert, he can’t.

God he misses the acetone.

Alex kills himself, which is new. Michael knows the statistics but Alex is so much more than that. It doesn’t stop him from doing it. He finds out when Max brings him in for questioning and stands with his arms folded as another detective says he’s a person of interest until the toxicology reports come back. After all, he was named in the note. When Max says they should look at Jesse Manes, the detective says Jesse wasn’t there and he wasn’t named in the note. It’s just Michael. Only Michael is a suspect. It’s fine with him because he knows it’s his fault.

“Michael, Michael I need you to look at me!”

“Go to hell, Valenti,” he says. Or tries to anyway. He also tries to swat him away but finds his arms are pinned down. His power is an echo in his head, he’s being blocked, “Izzzz” he says, the slur as accusatory as he can make it.

Fingers in latex gloves are on his face. Michael has spent his entire life trying to keep out of gloved hands like that so he doesn’t wind up in worse. He grapples past the warm blanket of Isobel’s mind and focuses. He hears Valenti’s outraged squawk as he shoves him back and there’s a thud. Sure Kyle’s probably a good guy and a fucking doctor but Michael’s been dissected and stuffed with cotton wool. He doesn’t really care. Isobel’s power roars up not like a blanket but like a tsunami and Michael’s only qualm with the waves taking him is what he’s going to dream of when they do.

Obviously he dreams of Alex dying.

It’s a slow one this time. Bullet, knife, psychic power—Michael doesn’t know. He just knows there’s blood everywhere. In so many different shades of red. It bubbles from Alex’s lips even as he tries to keep it in the hole in his torso. It’s useless and he stops trying, choosing instead to cup Alex’s cheek and tell him he loves him so damn much and he’s so damn sorry. The blood chokes Alex and the only thing he can do is leave a streak of it along Michael’s shirt when he tries to touch him one last time and is denied even that.

Michael wakes up gagging this time.

He’s fine with dying at this point, honestly. But hands push him to his side and stick a bucket under his chin. When other hands open his jaw and swipe his mouth. He can’t throw them off because Isobel has brought her A-game like an annoying mother hen for her acetone addicted chick. Maybe, he thinks, he’s an ugly duckling. But then he remembers Isobel’s just being a pain and he’s already grown up and still every bit as ugly.

“Where’s Max?” He asks.

“Max is sick,” someone familiar tells him, “he’s getting better, just like you.”

“Not like Alex,” he mumbles. Fingers push through his curls, “where’s Alex?”

“Alex doesn’t know you’re sick,” the nice voice tells him, “do you want him to know?”

“No. I’ll kill him,” he explains, “I always kill him. He can’t see me like this.”

“But do you want him?” the voice repeats, kindness edged in something. You don’t mess with a voice like that. Hazily he gets his eyes to open and looks at the face that belongs to the voice. He doesn’t deserve Maria’s smile, “hey stranger,” she says.

“I fucked up,” he rasps.

“What else is new?” She asks. His eyes are stinging, “Guerin,” she sighs, “come on,” she glares and then moves and suddenly Michael finds himself behind big spooned, “you fuck up all the time,” she says.

“Not like this,” he chokes out.

“Yes like this,” she says and grabs his hands, pulling him close, “breathe with me.”

“Why?” He says miserably.

“Because you owe it to me. Breathe.”

So he breathes.

Alex dies again.

He drowns this time or he floats away. On an iceberg. And MIchael can’t get to him because all the dumb foster homes he went to never thought it was important for him to learn how to swim. He can just yell and grip the impossible cold and try to get Alex to hear him. Alex has to hear him. Even as the water closes over him, even as the ice gets colder somehow. He gets pulled away from Alex again and again and again. He can’t stop the sob this time and it chases him back to consciousness along with the cold.

Along with Alex.

“Hey, hey, hey it’s me,” Alex says, scrambling up. Michael recognizes the white tiles and the lights of Isobel’s guest bathroom. The lights are dimmed. He’s in the bath but the water isn’t very hot. Not iceberg cold but it’s not a great feeling either. Alex touches his cheekbone and he wishes the guest room had a bigger tub so he could get away, “you’re going to be okay,” Alex says, “you’re running a fever.”

This is not how he wants to see Alex again. He tries to think of how he could have found out, but it’s hard to piece anything together from the past few days. It’s a haze. He thinks he may have had nightmares about Alex dying but that’s nothing new. Alex can see how tense he is and his hand leaves his cheekbone. Michael almost wants to grab it back but he also doesn’t and the inability to choose anything makes him feel helpless. He dips under the water and comes up to see Alex still there. He knows he was barely under for a moment but it still seems wrong that he’s here.

“What are you doing here?” He asks finally. If he called for him—then Michael realizes his own body isn’t safe.

“Liz called,” he admits finally, “she said you were running a fever and she didn’t think you’d use your powers on me.”

Michael presses his lips together but that assessment isn’t wrong. Alex is the person Michael is best at not using his powers around. Especially in situations were he otherwise might. His fingers ache even with Max’s healing. Alex sits there and Michael isn’t sure how to feel about how calmly he does. He wonders if Alex thinks he’s an addict or that it’s ridiculous he has to be there to make sure Michael doesn’t use his power. There’s nothing but kindness and ache in Alex’s gaze as he looks at him. It’s been a while since they saw each other, a lot shorter than it feels. But he’s not used to the way Alex is looking at him.

“You weren’t supposed to see this,” he says, realizing that standing up is probably a bad idea, much as he wants to. There’s only one person in the room to catch him, “I didn’t want you to—“ he stops and curses under his breath.

“Do you want me to go?”

Michael looks at him so fast the world spins for one nauseating second. Alex looks back at him steadily. Michael suddenly gets the sense that he could tell Alex to go and he would. He usually tells himself that he does things to make Alex go anyway, but that’s his own stupid coping mechanism. He has a lot easier time believing that if he tells him to go he can pass off Alex’s choices as his own desires. He doesn’t know if he can ask him to stay, despite dreaming of doing it for the past—however long alien detox is supposed to take. He begs him again and again like he long since forgot how to do.

“Do what you want.” He says instead, looking at the yellow ducky that’s bobbing there and wondering which of his asshole friends has such a twisted sense of humor. Alex shifts his weight and Michael tells himself a hundred stories about how this is better, but Alex just shifts his weight into a new position, “what are you doing?” Michael asks.

“My foot’s going to fall asleep,” Alex says, rearranging his legs.

“Oh,” Michael says lamely, “how much longer do I have to be in here for?”

“A bit,” Alex says. A long time then, Michael realizes if Alex isn’t quantifying it, “you want to start with Tolstoy?” He asks, producing a massive book from nowhere. His face is completely serious and Michael takes back every nice thing he ever thought about him, “or a movie?”

“Just drop your phone into the bathtub and put me out of my misery,” he pleads.

Alex gives him a look full of false sympathy and Michael flicks the water at him. Alex scoffs and rolls his eyes, a swift one two punch of nostalgia that sends a wave of longing over Michael.

“You can stay,” he mutters, finally arriving at the decision, “just don’t read the Tolstoy.”


End file.
